Wonder why you hate the sound of someone chewing his food loudly or breathing heavily? It's all in your head - literally.

Research from England's Newcastle University uncovered why some people suffer from misophonia, a condition where a person hates the sound of chewing, eating or repeated pen clicking. These noises are called "trigger sounds" and can create intense physiological responses in people with the disorder.

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Patients with misophonia experience changes in their brain activity when they hear trigger sounds, according to MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans. During the study, researchers played a variety of sounds that ranged from neutral to unpleasant, and the neurological responses of patients with misophonia were different than those without.

“I hope this will reassure sufferers. I was part of the skeptical community myself until we saw patients in the clinic and understood how strikingly similar the features are," Tim Griffiths, Professor of Cognitive Neurology at Newcastle University, said Friday.

The scans show that a person with misophonia has abnormal connections between his frontal lobe and anterior insular cortex. The anterior insular cortex is the part of the brain that helps process emotions and interprets "signals from both the body and outside world." The disconnect can overstimulate a misophonia patient's brain when certain audio cues are heard.

“We now have evidence to establish the basis for the disorder through the differences in brain control mechanism in misophonia," Griffiths added. "This will suggest therapeutic manipulations and encourage a search for similar mechanisms in other conditions associated with abnormal emotional reactions.”